Detroit Mourns Aretha Franklin (in Photos)

Aretha Franklin’s hometown of Detroit, Michigan, celebrated the singer’s life and legacy in a final send-off this week.

On Friday, friends, family, and an assortment of celebrities and dignitaries gathered for Franklin’s funeral in Detroit. Earlier in the week, during a public viewing, tens of thousands of people queued outside the Baptist church where Franklin’s father once ministered—some even breaking out in song while waiting to pay their respects, NPR’s Debbie Elliot reports.

At a separate viewing at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit on Tuesday, mourners spoke of Franklin’s legacy as a trailblazing musician and activist. “I think it’s incredibly significant—she is being honored almost like a queen at one of the most important black museums in the United States,” Paula Marie Seniors, an associate professor of Africana studies at Virginia Tech, told the Los Angeles Times. “[She was] a singer of the universe.”

Fittingly, the queen of soul’s remains were transported in the white Cadillac hearse that once carried Rosa Parks, according to NPR. Here, scenes from the city where Franklin’s career began.